Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Joseph's letter dated 24Oct2011
[Dear friends and family, as we finish the last week of October, I hope you are all enjoying some beautiful Fall colors! It is amazing that Christmas is only 2 months away!
Here is Joseph's latest letter. He'd love to hear from you! Send a reply to this note -- and I will forward it to Joseph.
Have a great week!
Joseph's editor - BWS]
Dear Family,
Well, I hope that you all enjoy the pictures I sent home. [I'll post these on the blog later today! BWS]
We all are doing well here and we had an excellent zone conference this past week. [A zone would include around 16 missionaries. BWS]We focused on finding, studying for our investigators and using Preach My Gospel [this is a book the missionaries use] to find solution to our problems.
Brother I is preparing for baptism! We are very excited for him, but we are praying for warmer weather so that he does not have to return to the Ukraine (he works construction here). He is still eating up the Book of Mormon and doing well.
We are also working with a very excited branch. We have Brother O, who just put in his papers to serve a mission and Brother J, who just returned from his mission in Wisconsin. We have such an amazing branch and members to work with here. I think that we will be seeing a lot of good success in the coming weeks.
It has been rather chilly out here for a while, so we are quite bundled up when we go out to work, but other than that, not a whole lot has changed.
Well, I am out of time, but I love you all and wish you all a wonderful week.
Love,
Elder Schindler
Monday, October 17, 2011
Letter dated 10Oct2011
[Dear family and friends, here is the letter that we received from Joseph today. I have included the packing suggestions to Weston -- because I thought it was interesting! I hope this letter finds you well. It is hard to believe that Joseph's mission is coming to an end in December. He LOVES hearing from you! Send your notes and messages and I will make sure he receives them!
Sincerely, Joseph's editor - BWS]
Dearest Family,
Here is my advice for Weston's packing for his mission:
First of all, do not buy everything on that packing list. You do not need that many shirts and you certainly do not need all of the first aid things they suggest. Maybe some neosporin, bandaids and Tylenol. You are going to a First world country, so you can buy anything that you find out you need or need more of down the line. Do not take a two year supply of anything (candy, medicine, batteries, etc..) you can buy it all in Spain. If I were to go on a mission to Europe again, and I am aware your mission will be warmer than mine, the only thing I would make sure to bring from home would be good shoes. You can buy shoes here, but the Rockport, Ecco and Hushpuppy brand of shoes you can buy in the US hold up much better than those here. Also, do not buy a backpack. I would suggest a smaller side bag, or a small backpack with good back support, but that is just me. This is what I would take with me if I were you.
Regarding suits, I do not know how many they suggested, but take that many.
Shirts. Take about five short sleeve and five long sleeve, but you could likely get away with less for now. My favorite shirts are the Stafford shirts at JCPennys. I suppose all of Spain may be warm so maybe you do not need the long sleeve ones.
One sweater (if it will get cold).
Two, nice pairs of shoes.
About fourteen pairs of socks.
about eight ties.
Two tshirts and two exercise shorts.
Pair of jeans
Pajamas
15 pairs of underwear
A pair of running/exercise shoes.
Scriptures. Buy them in the MTC or bring your own (you can buy them at cost in the MTC -- for way cheap).
I would pack on the lighter side if I were you, but if you have any specific questions, ask me. If you could send me the list of recommended items and I can give you my opinion on what you may actually need. Love you all.
I will send a better list next week of what I think you should and maybe should not bring. Please send the list of suggested items, though. I think that would help me adapt my advice for your climate.
Now, to the Letter.
First of all, we were able to watch General Conference. It was fantastic, but it took almost all of our weekend. The rest of the weekend was spent either planning or at our Branch President's mother's house in their garden. We spent a couple hours in the garden, on and off with the rain, turning the earth in the garden with shovels. It was great, and our shoes were covered in mud at the end. I also played a fun game where everytime I found a potato in the ground that had not been found by the pickers, I would throw it at Elder Weaver (he did not enjoy this game quite as much). In the end though we had about ten potatoes to give to the family. They also fed us an excellent Czech meal complete with dessert. Then at the end of the project, they fed us again.
This week went a little more slowly, but in the end everything was good, especially with General Conference. We had exchanges on Wednesday, which was exciting. I worked with Elder R. Bailey, who is in my MTC group, but is not the Elder Bailey from AZ. It was great to be able to work together and encourage each other to make sure we are enduring to the end well. We even found someone who we met with twice again this past week.
I will try to write more next week, but it is time to go.
I love you, and I am sorry but I have to run.
Love,
Elder Schindler
Joseph's letter dated 17Oct2011
Dearest Family,
I hope that you all enjoy the pictures from some past exploits. If you want an explanation on any of them you will have to ask, but that is me and the other people are people standing next to me when the pictures were taken. [I think we knew that! LOL]
This week went rather well. We are having a wonderful time teaching Brother I, who is reading quite a lot in the Book of Mormon everyday. He works on Sunday, so that is his current struggle, but we are hoping to overcome it. He is from the Ukraine, and if he is anything like the normal Ukrainian man, it is easy to see why there is already a temple in Kiev. He is just an amazing, humble person. Even when his leg cramped up when we kneeled down to pray, he was very positive and was not angry at all. Then the next meeting the member we were teaching with also had his leg cramp up. Rather funny, but we will likely stop so that it does not happen to anyone else. I am afraid I am next.
We also added a new member to our branch this week; Jarda K., who just returned from his mission in Wisconsin. He is great and is going to be a wonderful help to us and the branch. In fact, he is teaching with us today, and so I actually have to go soon so that we can make that lesson.
I am now flying into Saginaw and will land at 7:50 pm on the 27th of December.
We have to go and I love you all a lot.
Quickly, I forgot to tell you all that we are reading the Book of Mormon as a misison, ten pages a day. We are right now in Alma fifty and will finish just before the transfer. I do not have time to fully express it now, but I really do love the Book of Mormon. It is just so amazing and full of truth and guidance.
I love you all.
Love,
Elder Schindler
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Joseph's letter dated 3Oct2011
[Dear family and friends, it is now October - and the weather is reminding us that it is Autumn! I just hope we have a nice, LONG Autumn. We can wait for the snow. We had a wonderful General Conference. We heard many inspiring messages from Salt Lake. We are very excited about the new temples!
Here is the letter we received from Joseph today. I hope you enjoy it!
Joseph would love to hear from you! Reply to this note and I will forward your message to Joseph.
Stay warm -- and enjoy this first week of October!
Yours, Joseph's editor - BWS]
Hello Family,
This week went well and we saw several amazing miracles and the work is going well here in Jihlava.
Brother D is the first person I wish to speak about. He is one of our new investigators for this week and also attended church with us yesterday. He actually contacted us the other day and said that he wanted to learn more about the Mormon Bible. Since then he has been learning with us and is very curious and interested. He was raised a believer, but stopped believing when he was about eleven or twelve (he is about eighteen now). In the past month or so he has become much more interested in religion and God and that is why he called out to us. We have been very excited to meet with him and it was a great reminder that there are people here who really want to speak with us, we just have to find them first.
The other man I am particularly excited about is Brother. Brother I is from Ukraine and has lived here for over ten years. He was actually originally contacted last transfer and given a Restoration pamphlet. We were contacting last Monday evening and we ran into him near the end of the day. He had read the pamphlet and wanted to know more. We met with him three times this week. He is learning well and is reading the Book of Mormon in his native language. He speaks Czech very well, but we were still happy to have found a Book of Mormon in Ukrainian in our building.
We will be watching General Conference next week, just so you know. [General Conference happens every 6 months -- we hear messages from our church leaders in Salt Lake -- including messages from our prophet and the apostles.] We are looking forward to it and I am eagerly anticipating it.
Well, got to run. I love you all and I am healthy (like almost always).
Thank you. Everybody back home wrote me this week.
Love,
Elder Schindler
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